So I was going to try and come in here as someone who posts in both SE++ and D&D and give my perspective on things. I was even going to make a Daywalker joke and try to be funny. But, quite frankly, after catching up on this thread I'm just so tired at this moment and I'm genuinely reaching the point where I'm questioning if I'm going to bother to make the transition to the new forum or just throw some money at you guys and wish you luck.
We can't even get on the same page on what is happening, so the idea that we could ever reconcile the two different interpretations of reality without doing that is... I'm going to say hard to swollow.
As for the Glorious Edict, it's not like if we got rid of it we couldn't bring it back. Shut it down for awhile and see how things go. If the forum goes to shit, bring it back.
I get that. It is very tiresome to see the same vague childlike name calling happen over and over again. If the divide is as large and irreconcilable as some of these people make it out to be, why are some of us completely clueless to it? Why doesn't anyone have receipts? Can someone please name actual names and post actual comments/threads so we can what is actually going on instead of what you are perceiving? I can't even tell which side which people are on because i can't even figure out what the issue actually is.
Let's not do this. We can talk about the utility of the Edict and how it applies to discussion, but this particular action will only rehash a lot of prior grievances.
Ok, fair enough. I just have no idea what the actual grievances are, and apparently i am not alone in that. Hard to take a side or make suggestions when i don't even really understand what we are arguing about. I know it has something to do with moderation and tone but that's it.
For all the talk about weaponising politeness and getting away with bad shit that way we should probably make some space in the conversation for talking about solutions to posters just being openly, needlessly hostile and getting away with that.
The fact that the edict is ignored in SE++ isn’t, in my opinion, a great thing, and it’s certainly not ignored by posters there purely to call out bad behaviour.
So I was going to try and come in here as someone who posts in both SE++ and D&D and give my perspective on things. I was even going to make a Daywalker joke and try to be funny. But, quite frankly, after catching up on this thread I'm just so tired at this moment and I'm genuinely reaching the point where I'm questioning if I'm going to bother to make the transition to the new forum or just throw some money at you guys and wish you luck.
We can't even get on the same page on what is happening, so the idea that we could ever reconcile the two different interpretations of reality without doing that is... I'm going to say hard to swollow.
As for the Glorious Edict, it's not like if we got rid of it we couldn't bring it back. Shut it down for awhile and see how things go. If the forum goes to shit, bring it back.
I get that. It is very tiresome to see the same vague childlike name calling happen over and over again. If the divide is as large and irreconcilable as some of these people make it out to be, why are some of us completely clueless to it? Why doesn't anyone have receipts? Can someone please name actual names and post actual comments/threads so we can what is actually going on instead of what you are perceiving? I can't even tell which side which people are on because i can't even figure out what the issue actually is.
Let's not do this. We can talk about the utility of the Edict and how it applies to discussion, but this particular action will only rehash a lot of prior grievances.
Ok, fair enough. I just have no idea what the actual grievances are, and apparently i am not alone in that. Hard to take a side or make suggestions when i don't even really understand what we are arguing about. I know it has something to do with moderation and tone but that's it.
Ok, to summarize for people not aware, some people feel the glorious edict isn't being enforced equally, other people feel don't be a dick isn't being enforced equally. Some people want the entire forum run like SE++, others want it run like D&D, and some just want to find a balance that works as a baseline for the entire thing. We shouldn't be looking at sides here, but talking about potential issues with the current rules and arguing for or against the points presented.
Those who have issues with one another, this isn't the place to hash out those issues, this is purely about moving forward.
Hey @Hahnsoo1 /Ramius/anybody listening (the president?), I'm going to quote myself and repeat something, would anybody mind posting a survey to each subforum as I brought up? I think this discussion would be a lot more productive if we had actual anonymous data about how many members want each subforum to return. I can work on this using Google if this is allowed.
Or if anonymity isn't important it could just be a sticky thread with a poll attached in each subforum.
Hey Hahnsoo1 /Ramius/anybody listening (the president?), I'm going to quote myself and repeat something, would anybody mind posting a survey to each subforum as I brought up? I think this discussion would be a lot more productive if we had actual anonymous data about how many members want each subforum to return. I can work on this using Google if this is allowed.
Or if anonymity isn't important it could just be a sticky thread with a poll attached in each subforum.
I think you are going to get a messy self section skew on the poll.
But I am happy to help set it up/analyze it as well if this is something we want to do.
Again though limited time I think just focusing on moving what we have where possible is the most efficient answer.
Most of the voices in the chorus claiming irreconcilable differences are coming from one side, here. Just an observation.
The "sides" in this case are a couple dozen people on each side, out of the 1000+ user base. Most people who interact with the forums aren't even remotely aware of the subforum beef unless it's pointed out to them or they participate in the absolute most contentious threads on the whole forums. I do not think this represents a majority of the users of this forum.
And I want to emphasize that I don't think any of this will change overnight. And that's okay.
Ok well i am glad it is not just me who is unaware. The way these people are talking makes it sound like the Hatfields and the McCoys and i have no idea what is going on.
I think it's less visible because it exists only in a subset of threads in one subforum. If you don't post in politics-adjacent threads in D&D, you will probably never notice it. If you do post in politics-adjacent threads in D&D, you will find that they are nigh-unusable much of the time because of all the squabbling. And while it may be mostly a couple dozen people out of 2,000, it nevertheless impacts many, many people. (Though, again, mostly in D&D.)
It is, however, definitely an issue that needs to be addressed at some point. It's untenable. And I think our choices are basically "force the two sides to have common ground and peacefully coexist" or "establish different environments so the two groups can have whatever conversations they want without having to deal with one another." The former would be great. I would love to see that. I don't think the two sides, like, utterly hate each other or whatever, and it seems coexistence is at least technically possible. But I have no idea how to get there. And if we can't come up with an idea to do so, I think the latter is the next best solution.
Like, one side has a Lego thread that a bunch of people love. Cool! Let's go chat about Legos with one another! But if there's a bunch of people who you like talking about the election with, and a bunch of people you want to throttle every time they speak, maybe there should be parallel conversations in separate locations so actual conversation can actually happen. Because what goes down in the D&D politics threads much of the time is not conversation.
Also, unrelated, but for the love of god can we please not have discussion via comic posts and image macros?
Would you say I had a plethora of pinatas?
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
I'm just going to point out, again for probably the umpteenth time, that I found SE++ to be an extremely friendly and welcoming forum when I started posting there in the last few years after (and so mysteriously occurring after my complaints to staff resulted in one of Jeffe's mod decisions against Henroid in how he handled the fragrantly anti-immigrant shit happening nearly four years ago in the immigration thread) effectively being hounded out of D&D, a subforum I had posted without problems for years.
I just find it fascinating how it was only after that that somehow I suddenly started catching more and more attention from D&D mod staff for "infractable" behavior, after standing up for another poster from a marginalized background who was only lashing out because so many people were going to bat for the the democratic president enforcing the same kind of policies they had just a few months before in Trump's term they had been calling absolute evil.
Like I'll be blunt: I think moderation in Debate and/or Discourse has, largely, been a failure and privileges a certain kind of white, male, cishet poster with moderate/centrist political leanings, and the moment anyone strays from that they got to be put on a shitlist that got them increased moderation attention and further elicited abuse from multiple forumers who followed that pattern of targeting from the staff.
so I am intensely disinclined to take at face value the input of the same "ex"-staff I see largely responsible for the increase in toxicity of D&D over the past several years.
Most of the voices in the chorus claiming irreconcilable differences are coming from one side, here. Just an observation.
The "sides" in this case are a couple dozen people on each side, out of the 1000+ user base. Most people who interact with the forums aren't even remotely aware of the subforum beef unless it's pointed out to them or they participate in the absolute most contentious threads on the whole forums. I do not think this represents a majority of the users of this forum.
And I want to emphasize that I don't think any of this will change overnight. And that's okay.
Ok well i am glad it is not just me who is unaware. The way these people are talking makes it sound like the Hatfields and the McCoys and i have no idea what is going on.
I think it's less visible because it exists only in a subset of threads in one subforum. If you don't post in politics-adjacent threads in D&D, you will probably never notice it. If you do post in politics-adjacent threads in D&D, you will find that they are nigh-unusable much of the time because of all the squabbling. And while it may be mostly a couple dozen people out of 2,000, it nevertheless impacts many, many people. (Though, again, mostly in D&D.)
It is, however, definitely an issue that needs to be addressed at some point. It's untenable. And I think our choices are basically "force the two sides to have common ground and peacefully coexist" or "establish different environments so the two groups can have whatever conversations they want without having to deal with one another." The former would be great. I would love to see that. I don't think the two sides, like, utterly hate each other or whatever, and it seems coexistence is at least technically possible. But I have no idea how to get there. And if we can't come up with an idea to do so, I think the latter is the next best solution.
Like, one side has a Lego thread that a bunch of people love. Cool! Let's go chat about Legos with one another! But if there's a bunch of people who you like talking about the election with, and a bunch of people you want to throttle every time they speak, maybe there should be parallel conversations in separate locations so actual conversation can actually happen. Because what goes down in the D&D politics threads much of the time is not conversation.
Also, unrelated, but for the love of god can we please not have discussion via comic posts and image macros?
Now's the time to post images while PA is footing the bill and not us.
syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Products, Transition Teamregular
I really don't want every thread that brings the whole for the forum together turning into festivus. I also don't want to get too slap happy on the report button because everyone here deserves to have a voice.
But can we please focus on putting out the fire instead of egging each other on in a way that does nothing but limit our ability to fix shit.
There's a way to talk about these issues without getting into shit slinging territory, and honestly keeping things about what we can change instead of what's been wrong would be more productive.
No I don't.
+7
amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
Y'all should just take a vote.
Pull the stats, see who has had the most points in the last five years, who is routinely on ignore lists, etc.
Entire forum votes, Yes/No/Abstain (or neglect to vote/lurks)
Most of the voices in the chorus claiming irreconcilable differences are coming from one side, here. Just an observation.
No shit, one side doesn't want to get abused anymore
I'm not sure you're making the point you think you are
Which side do you think you are in this equation?
Do you think the reason Oghulk, TheySlashThem and countless others have left is just they got tired of posting?
SE++ is less strict on the edict sure but which sub forum generates the majority of the reports and bannings?
Which sub forum is the one trying to make forum segregation a thing?
I'm not sure how I feel about this but my initial reaction is but if we resolve a solution where D&D and SE remain separate I wish we could pick one, and you don't post on the other.
I've maybe posted 10 times in SE in 15 years and my understanding is more than a few people are active in both but it feels like the raiding, to call a spade a spade, goes one-way. I think some SE folks would desire separate sub-boards under a unified site, too, because that's a feature and not a bug.
also to come back ot this
Who, exactly, do y'all think is SE++ers "raiding" D&D?
Because what I've seen is more and more D&Ders, typically the socialist ones and the queer ones, getting run out of a subforum we've been posting in for years if not decades, and finding refuge in SE++... at which point then we seemingly get labeled as a bunch of SE++ trolls trying to rile up D&D, our own membership in that community now nullified because we sought out a more supportive and friendly section of the PA Community.
Most of the voices in the chorus claiming irreconcilable differences are coming from one side, here. Just an observation.
The "sides" in this case are a couple dozen people on each side, out of the 1000+ user base. Most people who interact with the forums aren't even remotely aware of the subforum beef unless it's pointed out to them or they participate in the absolute most contentious threads on the whole forums. I do not think this represents a majority of the users of this forum.
And I want to emphasize that I don't think any of this will change overnight. And that's okay.
Ok well i am glad it is not just me who is unaware. The way these people are talking makes it sound like the Hatfields and the McCoys and i have no idea what is going on.
You're not alone.
I like Zon's idea on Page 3. My only real question is where do I go for shitposting something like a poll over which word is more erotic: moist, plethora, or larlar? But the basic idea is good.
Like, I don't go to D&D primarily because I don't want to discuss heavy topics on the internet anymore, the same reason I don't post in the heavy topic stuff and only very occasionally drop into the twitter thread that's in SE. I like Tanuki's and cute animals on Twitter, not yet more genocide and atrocities. I understand D&D has "off topic" relaxed topics but like, I'm already using the ones in SE so it's laziness on my part to not want to go back and forth for both.
I don't post more in G&T (which used to be my primary spot) just out of laziness. Usually when I'm done with the threads I wanted to check on I'm either done with forum time or need to go do something else. My habits have just shifted and I'm guilty of usually popping in, hitting the bookmarks, jetting out.
It's wild to me that the people who think "must remain separate" don't think they can just do that in Zon's proposed system. Are the vibes that different in the duplicate not-serious threads like TVs or Movies? In Zon's system I would expect a Debate Club Twitter thread to primarily focus on how awful the world is and breaking news and current events in general and the like whereas a Suburbs one would be funny cooking things and cute animals and breaking news and how isn't that better? Somebody like me could participate more in more places without having to dump out of a spot for a while because we have to interrupt cute animals doing cute things with more atrocities.
I'm just going to point out, again for probably the umpteenth time, that I found SE++ to be an extremely friendly and welcoming forum when I started posting there in the last few years after (and so mysteriously occurring after my complaints to staff resulted in one of Jeffe's mod decisions against Henroid in how he handled the fragrantly anti-immigrant shit happening nearly four years ago in the immigration thread) effectively being hounded out of D&D, a subforum I had posted without problems for years.
I just find it fascinating how it was only after that that somehow I suddenly started catching more and more attention from D&D mod staff for "infractable" behavior, after standing up for another poster from a marginalized background who was only lashing out because so many people were going to bat for the the democratic president enforcing the same kind of policies they had just a few months before in Trump's term they had been calling absolute evil.
Like I'll be blunt: I think moderation in Debate and/or Discourse has, largely, been a failure and privileges a certain kind of white, male, cishet poster with moderate/centrist political leanings, and the moment anyone strays from that they got to be put on a shitlist that got them increased moderation attention and further elicited abuse from multiple forumers who followed that pattern of targeting from the staff.
so I am intensely disinclined to take at face value the input of the same "ex"-staff I see largely responsible for the increase in toxicity of D&D over the past several years.
Because we are talking about our future I will actually talk to this. Because I think this shows a lot of the split.
First it has been stated, there were reasons beyond the immigration thread that poster was banned. It is not up to those involved to talk to you about it. Or the mods unless they are told they can. There can be discussions about bringing back banned posters I think on a case by case basis as is now. That is a discussion as we move forward.
I think the second one is where we get the split. I am not going to go through the demographics of the mods, but they ain't all you think they are. But that doesn't matter. D&D has as you a pointed out a different culture. It has a stricter rule structure. It is a place you can't post a meme to answer. And targeting individuals no matter who should be off limits.
But also I would say that last part should be part of the forum as a whole. Welcoming for some but not all is not an answer. Which I know usually turns into the Nazi bar response. Already that behavior is banned and should remain so. We should continue to ban the giant list of things we already do and how to treat each other.
But this gets back to the inconsistent enforcement of the foundational rule of "Don't be a dick." What is considered "being a dick" or "being an asshole" or whatever you want to state as an unacceptable action is different. And with the new start maybe there is a place for discussion of being consistent modding across the board.
Also as I stated early maybe part of that isn't going to one forum, no matter what, and saying "Look at those assholes, I hope they die/fuck off/go away/choke on a tomato." This is an old rule that fell out of use. And I know it was enforced in [chat] forever and I think it should be enforced universally.
We can all have differing opinions. That is what D&D is suppose to be. Discourse. Discussion of events and differing interpretations. And that drives feelings high. But also it is a lot of discussion of events disconnected from pure feeling. Because that is also part of building a unified truth to discuss around. And I think that part of the culture rubs some folks wrong as well.
We want to chart a future course. That course is bringing as many of us as possible along. Even those you disagree with. Because this is a third space with a lot of people in a lot of places with a lot of different views and histories. And we should try to keep as much of that diversity of thought around so we can talk through things.
This forum has so many people, myself included, who have become less terrible people because we have learned and interacted with those differing opinions. Even ones where my first reaction was, "FUCK OFF!"
None of the planning threads is really going to amount to much right now because too many people have their voices in the forums continuing, which makes sense as it's been my internet homebase for two decades so obviously I and others have strong feelings about it. But the details probably need to be more hammered out before being presented to people.
I'm obviously not going to be a mod as I'm one of the people who argues in the contentious threads, but I'm happy to work with people about trying to bridge the gaps between the communities and working on the plan behind the scenes before presenting it to the forum as a whole.
Most of the voices in the chorus claiming irreconcilable differences are coming from one side, here. Just an observation.
No shit, one side doesn't want to get abused anymore
I'm not sure you're making the point you think you are
Which side do you think you are in this equation?
Do you think the reason Oghulk, TheySlashThem and countless others have left is just they got tired of posting?
SE++ is less strict on the edict sure but which sub forum generates the majority of the reports and bannings?
Which sub forum is the one trying to make forum segregation a thing?
fuck, someone either in this thread or the Future of PA thread in the bug report forum (the two are fusing in my mind because of similar conversation trajectories and from being up with little sleep thanks to hungry cat waking me up at a godawful hour) brought up subforum bans and I remember that distinctly being some bullshit feature request that Kosh was publicly saying that he wanted if they could get some new coding going on for this iteration of the forum.
Like I think the problem is this: D&D's previous mod staff created a toxic atmosphere according to their own sociopolitical preferences, and the victims of that toxicity get the blame for being "disruptive" when they get pissed about people being hurt or driven out or made to feel dehumanized, and nothing gets done about the people doing those things because they did so while being "civil" (typically just how they regard "being calm and not calling people names," fundamentally rendering anyone who actually exhibits natural, human emotional reactions as disruptive and thus punishable posters)
Also as with any transition we must accept folks will fall off.
And we are lesser for it.
But trying make it so our new home is consistent and welcoming and moderated openly, I like the discussion of different software that helps with this, is a goal.
But also let us remember that means sometimes we all might cross the line.
And the lines might not be the same. We are taking a foundation of a place I think we all love in our own way. Even if its movie style stockholm syndrom. And we want it to go on. And also the best way to do that is to work and strength the community even if we keep the forums organized as they are now.
Since some people are unaware, I'm going to try and give an attempt at an impartial read of the current forum schism. As mentioned, it's mostly wrapped up in political threads, which are a minor part of the forum really, but politics are extremely consequential, and speak to the core values of the poster, so it's not surprising it's contentious.
And if you want my honest to god opinion?
Donald Trump and the modern republican party have basically driven us all around the bend with fear. There's basically two groups now and they're entirely wrapped up in where they draw their lines.
Group A draws the line at preventing the election of Donald Trump and the rise of fascism, and I have seem some damn distasteful stuff done by the Democrats essentially swept under the rug, mansplained or otherwise downplayed out of this fear. It's understandable, the altenternative is so much worse, but you see it time and time again, even when the critique is relatively minor. People fall over themselves to dismiss or downplay concerns of other posters, because they're fucking scared of the idea of a Trump presidency and see anything that could damage Democrat chances as not only unwelcome, but dangerous. And these things don't go away, they will pop up in the news time and time again, and each time it does and Group B comments on it, the tolerance towards those people erodes. Because, again, the biggest of all boogymen is breathing down our necks.
Group B draws the line at things like aiding genocide, shitty republican-esque immigration policies, or the softening of langauge on trans rights. They view these things as not only betrayals of the core beliefs and morality that the Democrats are supposed to represent, but in the case of posters directly affected by those things, a betrayal against themselves. That is fucking terrifying when you learn the people who are supposedly your defenders suddenly decide that defense is negotiatable, and when no one else acknowledges it, or even worse, tries to "well actually" to them why they shouldn't feel the way they do about something so incredibly personal to them... well, the longer a person is subjected to that, the more likely they're either going to leave or lash out, at which point they step over the line and get banned while the people who dismissed or derided them keep on going. The more that hapens, the more the tolerance for group A erodes as well, to the point where I've seen people from D&D get treated like complete garbage in SE++, in ways that I found shocking.
Everything stems from this paradigm, and it has turned people who should be allies into bitter enemies.
I think anybody saying the two sides don't hate each other is being extremely dishonest to themselves, frankly.
At minimum, one group is claiming to be the victims of abuse and coordinated raids built on personal grudges and the other group is claiming the first has been bigoted, transphobic, and hostile to marginalized groups for over a decade and only getting worse; each side is fully convinced the other contains people who hate them and primarily acts to target users they want to drive away from the forums.
The edict is actively weaponised to provoke others by saying heinous shit with a veneer of civility. The aim is to manipulate others into breaking "The Edict" so that they get struck down.
Meanwhile the heinous speaker is allowed free reign as they did not break decorum.
Its a ridiculous, loony tunes, childs cartoon version of morality control reminiscent of the movie Demolition Man. "You have been fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality standard."
No, that's not at all what it's about and it's not how people treat it. If you are seeing hostility behind every polite post, that's about what you are reading into people's posts rather then what they are actually saying. There is not some grand conspiracy behind people talking to each other without screaming invective all the time. That's just people talking like normal.
This isn't a ridiculous, loony tunes, childs cartoon version of morality, it's basic expectations of behaviour you'd see anywhere in your daily life.
Calling people who disagree with your framing "ridiculous, loony tunes, childish cartoons" is in fact not a polite way to converse
Try reading that last sentence again?
This is incredibly illustrative, and more than a bit ironic. It's worth noting that the Glorious Edit wasn't even directly relevant to this exchange - you could replace it with any number of topics and the interaction would be almost exactly the same.
As is the fact that it's the exact same posters who seem intent on driving D&D into whatever they want it to be instead of what it actually is and has been for years.
There are many people I know, including myself, who just straight up left SE++ due to the amount of reactionary vitriol and straight-up meanness that was displayed towards people who weren't even in the room or who deigned to have an opinion or passing thought that was different from a particularly loud group. And I'm not talking about opinions like, "Black people aren't human". I mean opinions like, "Maybe Mitt Romney isn't literally Hitler" back in the 2010's. In like, the TV show thread. It is not a new problem - it just got worse with the current political environment.
I am very curious to see hard metrics regarding the posters and kinds of posts that engender the kind of, for lack of a better term, Reporting Wars that end up happening consistently.
Idly looked back at the only infraction I've gotten here after all these years. Mildly funny it was a few of us getting hit in Graphic Violence for just barely discussing the idea of making our own blog.
I'm just going to point out, again for probably the umpteenth time, that I found SE++ to be an extremely friendly and welcoming forum when I started posting there in the last few years after (and so mysteriously occurring after my complaints to staff resulted in one of Jeffe's mod decisions against Henroid in how he handled the fragrantly anti-immigrant shit happening nearly four years ago in the immigration thread) effectively being hounded out of D&D, a subforum I had posted without problems for years.
I just find it fascinating how it was only after that that somehow I suddenly started catching more and more attention from D&D mod staff for "infractable" behavior, after standing up for another poster from a marginalized background who was only lashing out because so many people were going to bat for the the democratic president enforcing the same kind of policies they had just a few months before in Trump's term they had been calling absolute evil.
Like I'll be blunt: I think moderation in Debate and/or Discourse has, largely, been a failure and privileges a certain kind of white, male, cishet poster with moderate/centrist political leanings, and the moment anyone strays from that they got to be put on a shitlist that got them increased moderation attention and further elicited abuse from multiple forumers who followed that pattern of targeting from the staff.
so I am intensely disinclined to take at face value the input of the same "ex"-staff I see largely responsible for the increase in toxicity of D&D over the past several years.
Because we are talking about our future I will actually talk to this. Because I think this shows a lot of the split.
First it has been stated, there were reasons beyond the immigration thread that poster was banned. It is not up to those involved to talk to you about it. Or the mods unless they are told they can. There can be discussions about bringing back banned posters I think on a case by case basis as is now. That is a discussion as we move forward.
I think the second one is where we get the split. I am not going to go through the demographics of the mods, but they ain't all you think they are. But that doesn't matter. D&D has as you a pointed out a different culture. It has a stricter rule structure. It is a place you can't post a meme to answer. And targeting individuals no matter who should be off limits.
But also I would say that last part should be part of the forum as a whole. Welcoming for some but not all is not an answer. Which I know usually turns into the Nazi bar response. Already that behavior is banned and should remain so. We should continue to ban the giant list of things we already do and how to treat each other.
But this gets back to the inconsistent enforcement of the foundational rule of "Don't be a dick." What is considered "being a dick" or "being an asshole" or whatever you want to state as an unacceptable action is different. And with the new start maybe there is a place for discussion of being consistent modding across the board.
Also as I stated early maybe part of that isn't going to one forum, no matter what, and saying "Look at those assholes, I hope they die/fuck off/go away/choke on a tomato." This is an old rule that fell out of use. And I know it was enforced in [chat] forever and I think it should be enforced universally.
We can all have differing opinions. That is what D&D is suppose to be. Discourse. Discussion of events and differing interpretations. And that drives feelings high. But also it is a lot of discussion of events disconnected from pure feeling. Because that is also part of building a unified truth to discuss around. And I think that part of the culture rubs some folks wrong as well.
We want to chart a future course. That course is bringing as many of us as possible along. Even those you disagree with. Because this is a third space with a lot of people in a lot of places with a lot of different views and histories. And we should try to keep as much of that diversity of thought around so we can talk through things.
This forum has so many people, myself included, who have become less terrible people because we have learned and interacted with those differing opinions. Even ones where my first reaction was, "FUCK OFF!"
Except that wasn't why Henroid was banned, and last I remember in the previous conversations about this, no one on staff could find a record of that being the reason why they were banned. It also disregards that even if it was, that wasn't why Jeffe had been repeatedly going after them in the immigration thread, but because Henroid had been lashing out at posters who were, again, defending absolutely unconscionable immigration policy now that it was a democrat doing so. I know, because I literally reported Jeffe's posts to the rest of staff, which was what lead to Henroid being unkicked from the immigration thread, until such time that the thread broke him a subsequent time, and Jeffe once again swooped in to boot the troublesome latino yelling at mostly white democrats that they were being shits to immigrants with the same background as him.
And then mysteriously after that, suddenly I start getting on Jeffe's shitlist with fun little rules that weren't actually listed as actual rules until I literally complained to staff that they weren't publicly codified, like the rule against posting "too much" news article text, etc. etc.
and you don't need to tell me about D&D culture, Mazzyx, I've been posting in there for nearly twenty years until effectively getting hounded out and it being made quite clear that I'm not welcome in there, despite being a member in good standing for about 14 of those nearly twenty years.
The edict is actively weaponised to provoke others by saying heinous shit with a veneer of civility. The aim is to manipulate others into breaking "The Edict" so that they get struck down.
Meanwhile the heinous speaker is allowed free reign as they did not break decorum.
Its a ridiculous, loony tunes, childs cartoon version of morality control reminiscent of the movie Demolition Man. "You have been fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality standard."
No, that's not at all what it's about and it's not how people treat it. If you are seeing hostility behind every polite post, that's about what you are reading into people's posts rather then what they are actually saying. There is not some grand conspiracy behind people talking to each other without screaming invective all the time. That's just people talking like normal.
This isn't a ridiculous, loony tunes, childs cartoon version of morality, it's basic expectations of behaviour you'd see anywhere in your daily life.
I said it gets weaponised. I didn't say that's all that ever happens. That's just one of the worst ways it gets abused.
On top of the weaponisation people are also just bog standard getting away with saying heinous shit because they're just "saying shit" and I meant that too. It just didn't come across in that post.
Those heinous posts aren't getting infracted either, because they're "polite". I thought I'd made that clear but I guess I shoulda put more time into that post because it does sound like I'm saying its a grand conspiracy, if only because I didn't point it out. But both are an issue.
I'm not interested in whether you believe this: this is the consensus opinion I've seen from numerous SE folks. I'm just relaying it, because they don't even want to talk to you. They've given up, and stay out of DnD. (I also stay away from Dnd mostly now but that's mostly cos I'm sick of people arguing in circles.)
If you try to force them to obey this edict in the way its enforced in dnd everywhere in this new forum they will not join the forum and you'll lose a ton of people. They will be the ones "lost" you spoke of. Many have said they won't join a forum with such a ridiculous rule and they certainly aren't interested in DnD style rules.
Also shryke, real life doesnt have an edict. We just push back against people being dicks or they get consequences for their actions naturally. Its the belief that an edict is necessary to regulate behaviour that reminds me of Demolition Mans little swearing fines. You don't need an edict to have polite behaviour and losing it doesn't mean we all turn into savages.
I work in a library in a council environment. I am nothing if not polite at my job. The "polite" behaviour I'm talking about that doesn't get people infracted in DnD would get someone fired in a real professional environment because their rules against bullying, harassment and codes of conduct for speech are much more comprehensive, and it's understood in a real professional environment that just because you are civil with your language doesn't mean you aren't being toxic or unacceptable. And note that nowhere in those codes of conduct will you find the ludicrous idea that only inoffensive insults like "silly goose" are ok. Instead intent is the key, and anything can be considered problematic based on context. For example, if i continuously called a coworker a "silly goose", even though its "inoffensive" this could still constitute harassment. In the same way if I continuously argued against them in a way that implied there was something deeply wrong with them or their beliefs, even politely, and without stating this outright, this could also constitute harrassment. That's incredibly frequent in Dnd: its the bog standard line of argument. You tried to use it on me just now by jumping straight into claiming I was projecting.
That is a real life, professional set of rules people are expected to abide by. The edict is a pathetic joke that, if you actually followed in real life, as it is frequently used here, would get you written up and likely fired. I absolutely could get some of the "polite" ways I've been responded to in DnD written up as strikes against my workplace code of conduct, its ludicrous that you think DnD is just folks politely "saying shit".
It's the belief that if its lost that we all descend into the pre edict world of savagery that comes across as looney tunes, cartoon morality thinking to me. I can't take it at all seriously. The original forum wide nasty culture that brought about the edict is long gone and the ideas that it needs to be kept is fear without a basis. SE doesn't go by the edict anymore and its just like a standard conversation. If someone starts gettin too upset or harsh, others reign them in. Its mostly self governeed. Very rarely, a mod has to do something. Its very chill.
Perhaps DnD with its, uh, "intense" arguments could get its own set of code of conduct rules. And more fair enforcement even when people are "polite".
Posts
Ok, fair enough. I just have no idea what the actual grievances are, and apparently i am not alone in that. Hard to take a side or make suggestions when i don't even really understand what we are arguing about. I know it has something to do with moderation and tone but that's it.
PSN:Furlion
This post here is seagulling
Ok, to summarize for people not aware, some people feel the glorious edict isn't being enforced equally, other people feel don't be a dick isn't being enforced equally. Some people want the entire forum run like SE++, others want it run like D&D, and some just want to find a balance that works as a baseline for the entire thing. We shouldn't be looking at sides here, but talking about potential issues with the current rules and arguing for or against the points presented.
Those who have issues with one another, this isn't the place to hash out those issues, this is purely about moving forward.
Or if anonymity isn't important it could just be a sticky thread with a poll attached in each subforum.
I think you are going to get a messy self section skew on the poll.
But I am happy to help set it up/analyze it as well if this is something we want to do.
Again though limited time I think just focusing on moving what we have where possible is the most efficient answer.
I think it's less visible because it exists only in a subset of threads in one subforum. If you don't post in politics-adjacent threads in D&D, you will probably never notice it. If you do post in politics-adjacent threads in D&D, you will find that they are nigh-unusable much of the time because of all the squabbling. And while it may be mostly a couple dozen people out of 2,000, it nevertheless impacts many, many people. (Though, again, mostly in D&D.)
It is, however, definitely an issue that needs to be addressed at some point. It's untenable. And I think our choices are basically "force the two sides to have common ground and peacefully coexist" or "establish different environments so the two groups can have whatever conversations they want without having to deal with one another." The former would be great. I would love to see that. I don't think the two sides, like, utterly hate each other or whatever, and it seems coexistence is at least technically possible. But I have no idea how to get there. And if we can't come up with an idea to do so, I think the latter is the next best solution.
Like, one side has a Lego thread that a bunch of people love. Cool! Let's go chat about Legos with one another! But if there's a bunch of people who you like talking about the election with, and a bunch of people you want to throttle every time they speak, maybe there should be parallel conversations in separate locations so actual conversation can actually happen. Because what goes down in the D&D politics threads much of the time is not conversation.
Also, unrelated, but for the love of god can we please not have discussion via comic posts and image macros?
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
I just find it fascinating how it was only after that that somehow I suddenly started catching more and more attention from D&D mod staff for "infractable" behavior, after standing up for another poster from a marginalized background who was only lashing out because so many people were going to bat for the the democratic president enforcing the same kind of policies they had just a few months before in Trump's term they had been calling absolute evil.
Like I'll be blunt: I think moderation in Debate and/or Discourse has, largely, been a failure and privileges a certain kind of white, male, cishet poster with moderate/centrist political leanings, and the moment anyone strays from that they got to be put on a shitlist that got them increased moderation attention and further elicited abuse from multiple forumers who followed that pattern of targeting from the staff.
so I am intensely disinclined to take at face value the input of the same "ex"-staff I see largely responsible for the increase in toxicity of D&D over the past several years.
Now's the time to post images while PA is footing the bill and not us.
{Bluesky Account }{Writing and Story Blog}
But can we please focus on putting out the fire instead of egging each other on in a way that does nothing but limit our ability to fix shit.
It isn't helping.
Pull the stats, see who has had the most points in the last five years, who is routinely on ignore lists, etc.
Entire forum votes, Yes/No/Abstain (or neglect to vote/lurks)
Why dance around it if the place is going away?
The Phalla To End All Phallas
Which side do you think you are in this equation?
Do you think the reason Oghulk, TheySlashThem and countless others have left is just they got tired of posting?
SE++ is less strict on the edict sure but which sub forum generates the majority of the reports and bannings?
Which sub forum is the one trying to make forum segregation a thing?
Steam
even better, the 20 most moderated posters compete, five get to remain
My bets are on se++ with their Bizzarro Stormy dark horse.
also to come back ot this
Who, exactly, do y'all think is SE++ers "raiding" D&D?
Because what I've seen is more and more D&Ders, typically the socialist ones and the queer ones, getting run out of a subforum we've been posting in for years if not decades, and finding refuge in SE++... at which point then we seemingly get labeled as a bunch of SE++ trolls trying to rile up D&D, our own membership in that community now nullified because we sought out a more supportive and friendly section of the PA Community.
You're not alone.
I like Zon's idea on Page 3. My only real question is where do I go for shitposting something like a poll over which word is more erotic: moist, plethora, or larlar? But the basic idea is good.
Like, I don't go to D&D primarily because I don't want to discuss heavy topics on the internet anymore, the same reason I don't post in the heavy topic stuff and only very occasionally drop into the twitter thread that's in SE. I like Tanuki's and cute animals on Twitter, not yet more genocide and atrocities. I understand D&D has "off topic" relaxed topics but like, I'm already using the ones in SE so it's laziness on my part to not want to go back and forth for both.
I don't post more in G&T (which used to be my primary spot) just out of laziness. Usually when I'm done with the threads I wanted to check on I'm either done with forum time or need to go do something else. My habits have just shifted and I'm guilty of usually popping in, hitting the bookmarks, jetting out.
It's wild to me that the people who think "must remain separate" don't think they can just do that in Zon's proposed system. Are the vibes that different in the duplicate not-serious threads like TVs or Movies? In Zon's system I would expect a Debate Club Twitter thread to primarily focus on how awful the world is and breaking news and current events in general and the like whereas a Suburbs one would be funny cooking things and cute animals and breaking news and how isn't that better? Somebody like me could participate more in more places without having to dump out of a spot for a while because we have to interrupt cute animals doing cute things with more atrocities.
Because we are talking about our future I will actually talk to this. Because I think this shows a lot of the split.
First it has been stated, there were reasons beyond the immigration thread that poster was banned. It is not up to those involved to talk to you about it. Or the mods unless they are told they can. There can be discussions about bringing back banned posters I think on a case by case basis as is now. That is a discussion as we move forward.
I think the second one is where we get the split. I am not going to go through the demographics of the mods, but they ain't all you think they are. But that doesn't matter. D&D has as you a pointed out a different culture. It has a stricter rule structure. It is a place you can't post a meme to answer. And targeting individuals no matter who should be off limits.
But also I would say that last part should be part of the forum as a whole. Welcoming for some but not all is not an answer. Which I know usually turns into the Nazi bar response. Already that behavior is banned and should remain so. We should continue to ban the giant list of things we already do and how to treat each other.
But this gets back to the inconsistent enforcement of the foundational rule of "Don't be a dick." What is considered "being a dick" or "being an asshole" or whatever you want to state as an unacceptable action is different. And with the new start maybe there is a place for discussion of being consistent modding across the board.
Also as I stated early maybe part of that isn't going to one forum, no matter what, and saying "Look at those assholes, I hope they die/fuck off/go away/choke on a tomato." This is an old rule that fell out of use. And I know it was enforced in [chat] forever and I think it should be enforced universally.
We can all have differing opinions. That is what D&D is suppose to be. Discourse. Discussion of events and differing interpretations. And that drives feelings high. But also it is a lot of discussion of events disconnected from pure feeling. Because that is also part of building a unified truth to discuss around. And I think that part of the culture rubs some folks wrong as well.
We want to chart a future course. That course is bringing as many of us as possible along. Even those you disagree with. Because this is a third space with a lot of people in a lot of places with a lot of different views and histories. And we should try to keep as much of that diversity of thought around so we can talk through things.
This forum has so many people, myself included, who have become less terrible people because we have learned and interacted with those differing opinions. Even ones where my first reaction was, "FUCK OFF!"
I'm obviously not going to be a mod as I'm one of the people who argues in the contentious threads, but I'm happy to work with people about trying to bridge the gaps between the communities and working on the plan behind the scenes before presenting it to the forum as a whole.
{Bluesky Account }{Writing and Story Blog}
Baby brain stuff
fuck, someone either in this thread or the Future of PA thread in the bug report forum (the two are fusing in my mind because of similar conversation trajectories and from being up with little sleep thanks to hungry cat waking me up at a godawful hour) brought up subforum bans and I remember that distinctly being some bullshit feature request that Kosh was publicly saying that he wanted if they could get some new coding going on for this iteration of the forum.
Like I think the problem is this: D&D's previous mod staff created a toxic atmosphere according to their own sociopolitical preferences, and the victims of that toxicity get the blame for being "disruptive" when they get pissed about people being hurt or driven out or made to feel dehumanized, and nothing gets done about the people doing those things because they did so while being "civil" (typically just how they regard "being calm and not calling people names," fundamentally rendering anyone who actually exhibits natural, human emotional reactions as disruptive and thus punishable posters)
Lets start with one, it's good to manage expectations
And we are lesser for it.
But trying make it so our new home is consistent and welcoming and moderated openly, I like the discussion of different software that helps with this, is a goal.
But also let us remember that means sometimes we all might cross the line.
And the lines might not be the same. We are taking a foundation of a place I think we all love in our own way. Even if its movie style stockholm syndrom. And we want it to go on. And also the best way to do that is to work and strength the community even if we keep the forums organized as they are now.
I like it.
MHWilds ID: JF9LL8L3
If we move fast we can probably have Chanus surrounded before he can get away
And if you want my honest to god opinion?
Donald Trump and the modern republican party have basically driven us all around the bend with fear. There's basically two groups now and they're entirely wrapped up in where they draw their lines.
Group A draws the line at preventing the election of Donald Trump and the rise of fascism, and I have seem some damn distasteful stuff done by the Democrats essentially swept under the rug, mansplained or otherwise downplayed out of this fear. It's understandable, the altenternative is so much worse, but you see it time and time again, even when the critique is relatively minor. People fall over themselves to dismiss or downplay concerns of other posters, because they're fucking scared of the idea of a Trump presidency and see anything that could damage Democrat chances as not only unwelcome, but dangerous. And these things don't go away, they will pop up in the news time and time again, and each time it does and Group B comments on it, the tolerance towards those people erodes. Because, again, the biggest of all boogymen is breathing down our necks.
Group B draws the line at things like aiding genocide, shitty republican-esque immigration policies, or the softening of langauge on trans rights. They view these things as not only betrayals of the core beliefs and morality that the Democrats are supposed to represent, but in the case of posters directly affected by those things, a betrayal against themselves. That is fucking terrifying when you learn the people who are supposedly your defenders suddenly decide that defense is negotiatable, and when no one else acknowledges it, or even worse, tries to "well actually" to them why they shouldn't feel the way they do about something so incredibly personal to them... well, the longer a person is subjected to that, the more likely they're either going to leave or lash out, at which point they step over the line and get banned while the people who dismissed or derided them keep on going. The more that hapens, the more the tolerance for group A erodes as well, to the point where I've seen people from D&D get treated like complete garbage in SE++, in ways that I found shocking.
Everything stems from this paradigm, and it has turned people who should be allies into bitter enemies.
At minimum, one group is claiming to be the victims of abuse and coordinated raids built on personal grudges and the other group is claiming the first has been bigoted, transphobic, and hostile to marginalized groups for over a decade and only getting worse; each side is fully convinced the other contains people who hate them and primarily acts to target users they want to drive away from the forums.
Hey, no fair bringing in Bizarro Stormy!
Refs!
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
This is incredibly illustrative, and more than a bit ironic. It's worth noting that the Glorious Edit wasn't even directly relevant to this exchange - you could replace it with any number of topics and the interaction would be almost exactly the same.
As is the fact that it's the exact same posters who seem intent on driving D&D into whatever they want it to be instead of what it actually is and has been for years.
There are many people I know, including myself, who just straight up left SE++ due to the amount of reactionary vitriol and straight-up meanness that was displayed towards people who weren't even in the room or who deigned to have an opinion or passing thought that was different from a particularly loud group. And I'm not talking about opinions like, "Black people aren't human". I mean opinions like, "Maybe Mitt Romney isn't literally Hitler" back in the 2010's. In like, the TV show thread. It is not a new problem - it just got worse with the current political environment.
I am very curious to see hard metrics regarding the posters and kinds of posts that engender the kind of, for lack of a better term, Reporting Wars that end up happening consistently.
Why should Poorochondriac get his own forum?
people are fucking old
Except that wasn't why Henroid was banned, and last I remember in the previous conversations about this, no one on staff could find a record of that being the reason why they were banned. It also disregards that even if it was, that wasn't why Jeffe had been repeatedly going after them in the immigration thread, but because Henroid had been lashing out at posters who were, again, defending absolutely unconscionable immigration policy now that it was a democrat doing so. I know, because I literally reported Jeffe's posts to the rest of staff, which was what lead to Henroid being unkicked from the immigration thread, until such time that the thread broke him a subsequent time, and Jeffe once again swooped in to boot the troublesome latino yelling at mostly white democrats that they were being shits to immigrants with the same background as him.
And then mysteriously after that, suddenly I start getting on Jeffe's shitlist with fun little rules that weren't actually listed as actual rules until I literally complained to staff that they weren't publicly codified, like the rule against posting "too much" news article text, etc. etc.
and you don't need to tell me about D&D culture, Mazzyx, I've been posting in there for nearly twenty years until effectively getting hounded out and it being made quite clear that I'm not welcome in there, despite being a member in good standing for about 14 of those nearly twenty years.
I said it gets weaponised. I didn't say that's all that ever happens. That's just one of the worst ways it gets abused.
On top of the weaponisation people are also just bog standard getting away with saying heinous shit because they're just "saying shit" and I meant that too. It just didn't come across in that post.
Those heinous posts aren't getting infracted either, because they're "polite". I thought I'd made that clear but I guess I shoulda put more time into that post because it does sound like I'm saying its a grand conspiracy, if only because I didn't point it out. But both are an issue.
I'm not interested in whether you believe this: this is the consensus opinion I've seen from numerous SE folks. I'm just relaying it, because they don't even want to talk to you. They've given up, and stay out of DnD. (I also stay away from Dnd mostly now but that's mostly cos I'm sick of people arguing in circles.)
If you try to force them to obey this edict in the way its enforced in dnd everywhere in this new forum they will not join the forum and you'll lose a ton of people. They will be the ones "lost" you spoke of. Many have said they won't join a forum with such a ridiculous rule and they certainly aren't interested in DnD style rules.
Also shryke, real life doesnt have an edict. We just push back against people being dicks or they get consequences for their actions naturally. Its the belief that an edict is necessary to regulate behaviour that reminds me of Demolition Mans little swearing fines. You don't need an edict to have polite behaviour and losing it doesn't mean we all turn into savages.
I work in a library in a council environment. I am nothing if not polite at my job. The "polite" behaviour I'm talking about that doesn't get people infracted in DnD would get someone fired in a real professional environment because their rules against bullying, harassment and codes of conduct for speech are much more comprehensive, and it's understood in a real professional environment that just because you are civil with your language doesn't mean you aren't being toxic or unacceptable. And note that nowhere in those codes of conduct will you find the ludicrous idea that only inoffensive insults like "silly goose" are ok. Instead intent is the key, and anything can be considered problematic based on context. For example, if i continuously called a coworker a "silly goose", even though its "inoffensive" this could still constitute harassment. In the same way if I continuously argued against them in a way that implied there was something deeply wrong with them or their beliefs, even politely, and without stating this outright, this could also constitute harrassment. That's incredibly frequent in Dnd: its the bog standard line of argument. You tried to use it on me just now by jumping straight into claiming I was projecting.
That is a real life, professional set of rules people are expected to abide by. The edict is a pathetic joke that, if you actually followed in real life, as it is frequently used here, would get you written up and likely fired. I absolutely could get some of the "polite" ways I've been responded to in DnD written up as strikes against my workplace code of conduct, its ludicrous that you think DnD is just folks politely "saying shit".
It's the belief that if its lost that we all descend into the pre edict world of savagery that comes across as looney tunes, cartoon morality thinking to me. I can't take it at all seriously. The original forum wide nasty culture that brought about the edict is long gone and the ideas that it needs to be kept is fear without a basis. SE doesn't go by the edict anymore and its just like a standard conversation. If someone starts gettin too upset or harsh, others reign them in. Its mostly self governeed. Very rarely, a mod has to do something. Its very chill.
Perhaps DnD with its, uh, "intense" arguments could get its own set of code of conduct rules. And more fair enforcement even when people are "polite".